We utilized a wide variety of memory kits from
Corsair,
OCZ,
Patriot,
GSkill,
Kingston,
and Super Talent to verify memory
compatibility on our test boards. Our OS
and primary applications were loaded on the Kingston 80GB SSD drive and our
games were operated off the WD 300GB VRaptor drive. We did a clean install of
the OS and
applications for each motherboard.

We chose the ASUS GTX275 video card and Corsair’s
750HX power supply. Our air cooler of choice is Thermalright’s Ultra 120 eXtreme,
primarily for its exceptional
performance during our overclocking tests. We also tested with the retail
cooler and
those results along with direct CPU comparisons can be found here.

Our 790FX/X58 results are provided for comparison
only. For our test results we setup each board as closely as possible in
regards to memory timings. Otherwise all other settings are left on auto. The
P55 and 790FX motherboards utilized 8GB of DDR3, while the X58 platform
contained 6GB. The P55 and X58 DDR3 timings were set to 7-7-7-20 1T at DDR3-1600
for the i7/920, i7/870, and i7/860
processors at both stock and overclocked CPU settings.

We used DDR3-1333 6-6-6-18 1T timings for the
i5/750 stock setup as DDR3-1600 is not natively supported in current BIOS
releases for this processor at a stock Bclk setting of 133. We had early BIOS
releases that offered the native 1600 setting but stability was a serious
problem and support was pulled
for the time being. Performance is essentially the same between the two
settings.

The AMD 790FX setup is slightly different as trying to run DDR3-1600
at CAS 7 timings on the 1:4 divider is extremely difficult. Without resorting
to some serious overvolting and
relaxing of sub-timings, we set our AMD board up at DDR3-1600 8-8-8-20 1T
timings but with NB speed at 2200. The difference in performance between
C7 and C8 DDR3-1600 is practically immeasurable in applications and games on
this platform.

45 Comments

Yes, Foxconn socket. We are compiling a list of motherboards with each socket manufacturer along with whether they launched with the revised Foxconn socket or the old one (which seems to be the primary problem child). It has been difficult getting straight answers as you can imagine. ;) Reply

Pardon the brain freeze but what does the color coding inside the performance charts indicate?
I see 3 i7's and i5 and an AMD chip for comparison.
Am I interpreting correctly that the i5 750 is the light green, dark green is the I7 860?
The utilization of color doesn't seem to be consistent on the various graphs.

The MSI board is consistently highlighted as dark green in the latter several graphs. But which CPU is being used in that case? It looks like the I7 860 is the standard test but I can't quite grok it.
Reply

Pardon the brain freeze but what does the color coding inside the performance charts indicate?
I see 3 i7's and i5 and an AMD chip for comparison.
Am I interpreting correctly that the i5 750 is the light green, dark green is the I7 860?
The utilization of color doesn't seem to be consistent on the various graphs.

The MSI board is consistently highlighted as dark green in the latter several graphs. But it mentionsBut which CPU is being used in that case?
Reply

That generally sums up my experience with every MSI board I've ever used. Unfortunately, while the warts are few, they're usually significant enough that they overshadow all the good features, and you end up with a board that's frustrating to use.

Buy an ASRock or Biostar instead. You'll get a similar layout, similar overclocking options and fewer "warts" at a lower price. Reply

If you insert a device in the PCI Express x4 slot, then the other two PCI Express x1 slots are disabled automatically (because the mb has an extra PCI Express Gb LAN controller and a PCI Express IEEE 1394 controller). Somehow this is not mentioned in any review of this mb. Reply